- Joined
- Jul 26, 2013
- Messages
- 584
Hello again "K",
I see that someone has responded to your thread regarding this issue. I don't want to steal his thunder, so I will tell you how I removed the apron on mine.
First off, do you have a manual for your lathe and a parts list and diagramatical breakdown? If you do, it will be so much easier for you.
Secondly, on my particular model, the tail-stock end bearing block, for the lead and feed screws are part of the main bed casting. Because of this, there is a little more work involved. If your bearing block on your lathe is a separate part, the job will be less involved.
If your bearing block is an integral part of the main casting, you will have to separate the lead and feed screws from the gear box, release the tail-end collar grub screw on the feed shaft and slide both shafts through the bearing block about halfway. They should be supported with blocking or whatever you can come up with, so that they don't bind in the bearing block and damage the bearings.
On my lathe, I didn't have to remove the saddle, cross-slide, nor the compound slide to remove the apron.
The first thing to do is to remove the lower gearbox (threading gearbox) cover.
Sorry for the fuzzy pic. This pic shows the left driving shaft gear. There is a retaining collar with a circlip holding the collar. Remove the circlip and slide the collar to the left. This would be a good time to take a digital picture for your own reference with this cluster of gears and collars. It's not a real complicated arrangement, but I did.
The next two pics show the leadscrew gear and the driving gear coming into mesh. To do so, simply roll the chuck around and manipulate the "metric/neutral/imperial" lever to engage the slots. This is to allow a little more room for the next step.
Now, remove the grub screw from the locking collar at the far right of the gearbox...
Then, unscew one collar at a time until both are entirely clear of the threads on the leadscrew. It may be neccesary to slide the leadscrew out of the gearbox a little to gain enough space to do so. Now, the leadscrew should be free to slide out of the gearbox. Once the leadscrew was clear of the gearbox and supported, I slid a bar through the gears and collars and pulled the whole lot from the gearbox to keep the proper sequence of parts.
Now slide the leadscrew clear of the gearbox and support it.
Next is the feed shaft. There is a pin that binds the feedshaft coupling to the feed shaft. The pin is located outside of the gearbox. Drive this pin out and then slide the feed shaft free of the apron and support it.
In this pic, you can see two locking collars on the outside of the gearbox for the leadscrew. DO NOT fiddle with these locking collars. It is not necessary.... It's been some time since I removed the apron and can't recollect exactly how got the leadscrew free of the apron. I think that I had to manipulate the leadscrew at the same time that I removed the apron.
Next, are 4 capscrews to remove on the saddle which will detach the apron from the saddle in its entirety. It's a little heavy, but not overly so. It's not a bad idea to have some blocking beneath it to catch it in case it falls.
Now it should be fairly straightforward from here. I'll have to go have a boo at what I wrote and make sure that it makes sense. Feel free to ask any questions. I was a little intimidated when I first did this, but it's really just one part at a time.
Oops... pic 3 and 4 should be reversed...
Best regards...
Brian
I see that someone has responded to your thread regarding this issue. I don't want to steal his thunder, so I will tell you how I removed the apron on mine.
First off, do you have a manual for your lathe and a parts list and diagramatical breakdown? If you do, it will be so much easier for you.
Secondly, on my particular model, the tail-stock end bearing block, for the lead and feed screws are part of the main bed casting. Because of this, there is a little more work involved. If your bearing block on your lathe is a separate part, the job will be less involved.
If your bearing block is an integral part of the main casting, you will have to separate the lead and feed screws from the gear box, release the tail-end collar grub screw on the feed shaft and slide both shafts through the bearing block about halfway. They should be supported with blocking or whatever you can come up with, so that they don't bind in the bearing block and damage the bearings.
On my lathe, I didn't have to remove the saddle, cross-slide, nor the compound slide to remove the apron.
The first thing to do is to remove the lower gearbox (threading gearbox) cover.
Sorry for the fuzzy pic. This pic shows the left driving shaft gear. There is a retaining collar with a circlip holding the collar. Remove the circlip and slide the collar to the left. This would be a good time to take a digital picture for your own reference with this cluster of gears and collars. It's not a real complicated arrangement, but I did.
The next two pics show the leadscrew gear and the driving gear coming into mesh. To do so, simply roll the chuck around and manipulate the "metric/neutral/imperial" lever to engage the slots. This is to allow a little more room for the next step.
Now, remove the grub screw from the locking collar at the far right of the gearbox...
Then, unscew one collar at a time until both are entirely clear of the threads on the leadscrew. It may be neccesary to slide the leadscrew out of the gearbox a little to gain enough space to do so. Now, the leadscrew should be free to slide out of the gearbox. Once the leadscrew was clear of the gearbox and supported, I slid a bar through the gears and collars and pulled the whole lot from the gearbox to keep the proper sequence of parts.
Now slide the leadscrew clear of the gearbox and support it.
Next is the feed shaft. There is a pin that binds the feedshaft coupling to the feed shaft. The pin is located outside of the gearbox. Drive this pin out and then slide the feed shaft free of the apron and support it.
In this pic, you can see two locking collars on the outside of the gearbox for the leadscrew. DO NOT fiddle with these locking collars. It is not necessary.... It's been some time since I removed the apron and can't recollect exactly how got the leadscrew free of the apron. I think that I had to manipulate the leadscrew at the same time that I removed the apron.
Next, are 4 capscrews to remove on the saddle which will detach the apron from the saddle in its entirety. It's a little heavy, but not overly so. It's not a bad idea to have some blocking beneath it to catch it in case it falls.
Now it should be fairly straightforward from here. I'll have to go have a boo at what I wrote and make sure that it makes sense. Feel free to ask any questions. I was a little intimidated when I first did this, but it's really just one part at a time.
Oops... pic 3 and 4 should be reversed...
Best regards...
Brian
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